A lead Skyrim designer has revealed the reason behind Bethesda’s decision to announce The Elder Scrolls 6 in 2018, despite their focus on shipping Starfield: Angry gamers with their pitchforks and torches.
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In an October 23 interview with the gaming podcast MinnMax, Bruce Nesmith discussed his history with Bethesda Softworks. Nesmith, who has been with the company on and off since the ’90s and has worked on Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Skyrim, explained that Bethesda was receiving criticism for not sharing information about The Elder Scrolls 6. According to Nesmith, the backlash from angry gamers led Todd Howard to unveil a teaser for the game at E3 in June 2018. Nesmith stated:
“Well, you have to remember the company took years of hits for not talking about Elder Scrolls 6. I mean, years of hits. Because Todd’s opinion—one which I share, by the way—is that the video game industry has short memories. Those companies that start touting their games years ahead of time actually, you know, they screw themselves. The best time to start talking about it is six months before releases. […] So, only the fact that everybody was—you know, the pitchforks and torches were out. It got Todd to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to do Elder Scrolls 6. I promise you, it’s for real. It’ll happen.’ But I’m betting you won’t hear much in the way of details until about six months before release, which is the way it should be. I think that’s the best approach, and [Todd’s] proven that that works really well—at least for Bethesda.”
The Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed at E3 2018 with a teaser that showcased a majestic landscape and powerful music. Since then, Bethesda has shared only minimal updates, such as the game entering early development this year and hints about its potential setting.
Kotaku reached out to Bethesda for comment.
Although Nesmith is no longer employed at Bethesda, he mentioned that some of his ideas may still be included in The Elder Scrolls 6. He stated, “The whole magic system for Skyrim? I persuaded Todd to let me throw out the baby and the bathwater and restart [it] from scratch, and he trusted me enough to do that. There will probably still be traces of that in The Elder Scrolls 6. The whole ‘you do it to get better at it’? While that was not my unique idea, I had a large hand in that. That’s absolutely gonna continue. A lot of the concepts dealing with how you level and things like that, you know, there will be a bunch of new ideas thrown in, but I’m betting some of the stuff that I worked on will still survive in the new one.”
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